Whatever the actual numbers are, there's a genuine though possibly quite modest and evanscent trend towards Obama, and he's probably up by 3-4 points at the moment. Partly this is due to the official end of Palinmania, at least among swinging voters, thanks the media's relentless 3 week campaign against her, and partly this is due to the economy, and the public's uninformed guess that any time there's some problem with Wall Street or finance, it must be because of the Republicans helping out their buddies.

They couldn't be more wrong, of course. The election will be won or lost based on McCain's effectiveness at reversing that built-in narrative.

Incidentally, I don't know why McCain agreed to allow Friday's debate to shift from the economic agenda scheduled to the foreign policy agenda it will now explore. Seems like a huge error to agree to that change. He needs to reverse uninformed public opinion on this, and he gave up his highest-profile near-term chance to do so.